Ahem. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was my first love, the personification of all of my tween dreams, and it's only fitting that I give him a proper send off as I will soon pledge my heart to another blah blah blah.

I fell in love with Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the early 90s, when he appeared on a little show called Home Improvement. MAYBE YOU'VE HEARD OF IT. (I don't know.) Anyway. He was perfect, in my young eyes, and I knew that if only I could meet him, we'd fall deeply in (12-year-old) love because...um, we were almost the same age? I don't know, I'm pretty sure that when I was 12, I thought that was all it took. Same age.

Whatever, the case, I was in love and obsessed. Perhaps my obsessions with The X-Files and Mr. Darcy and Pam and Jim should have come as no surprise given my love for all things JTT.

When I was in sixth grade, my bedroom walls were PLASTERED with posters and pictures from such fine periodicals as: Tiger Beat and BOP and BBOP or whatever the hell they were all called. I used to buy them all whenever my mom would take me with her to Kroger. I'd stand in the magazine aisle, digging through them, searching for the best one. They were always on the bottom shelf, lined up together, tween boy faces gazing out at me between the coloring books and the crossword puzzles.

I'd flip through each magazine unless JTT was on the cover, then (OBVIOUSLY) I'd buy that one. He usually was on the cover, right next to Jonathan Brandis (RIP), Andrew Keegan (meh), and Rider Strong (double meh). Sometimes, OH SOMETIMES, the magazine would have a giant, fold-out poster inside of it. That was like finding a pot of gold and digging through that pot of gold to find, like, CHOCOLATE-COVERED GOLD.

My love did not stop at magazines, oh no. I would tape episodes of Home Improvement, new and syndicated, so I could watch the best Randy moments (heh) over and over. My favorite was the episode where there was something wrong with Randy (like, medically) because JTT was all, "I AM AN AC-TOR," in it and I was like, whoa, dreeeeamy. Randy was always my favorite of the Taylor brothers because Brad was, well, a moron and the little one was too young for me and also kind of weird. But Randy was the smart brother and so I was IN. LOVE.

I watched The Lion King over and over because JTT was the voice of Young Simba. I saw Man of the House in the theater and whenever we'd go to Blockbuster, I'd beg my parents to rent it. IT'S SO BAD, YOU GUYS. But I loved it, mostly because of JTT but also because they were in Indian Guides in the movie and I was totally an Indian Princess when I was a kid (Jennie + JTT = MFEO). My name was Little Star. I was in the Fox tribe. I...I'm going to stop talking now.

I don't know what happened to JTT or his career (other than a random episode of Veronica Mars) but my love has obviously faded. (LUCKY FOR JOE.) But I have to admit, I will 4-EVA have a Tiger Beat fold-out poster hanging deep in my heart for Randy Taylor.

I remember mine having a crazy variety-- either that or I read them for way too long: Kirk Cameron, Luke Perry and Jason Priestley, River Phoenix, Jonathan Brandis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp and Richard Grieco (hello, 21 Jump Street, I was too young to watch you). The featured band was ALWAYS Depeche Mode. And I could never tear out the posters because I could only check them out from the library.

Applause, Jennie-- this is an amazing post, even if I'm too ancient to know what MFEO means.

Instead of being in love with stars my own age, I was in love with Dean Cain. And Greg Louganis, apparently, but my didn't want to tell me that a) He was gay, and b) He had AIDS. I think I was three at the time so I don't blame her.

I didn't watch Tool Time, and was only vaguely aware of much of 1990s pop culture, but I know my Whedon-flavored 21st-century pop culture. So when you wrote about JTT, I swear on a stack of Tiger Beats that my first thought was, "Oh, he was that funny-looking dude who was the high school undercover FBI agent in that episode where Logan and Veronica kiss for the first time." I even know the name of the episode WITHOUT HAVING TO LOOK IT UP: Weapons of Class Destruction.